Brandmuscle, under the direction of CEO Phil Alexander, has added 11 national and international brands since late 2013.

There's a reason why Brandmuscle expects to keep breaking the sales and profitability records it just set.

The lines between the three marketing technology companies that merged to form Brandmuscle largely have been erased, according to CEO Phil Alexander.

Now the combined company is starting to roll.

Brandmuscle added 11 national and international brands to its list of 175 clients since late 2013, and it posted double-digit increases in sales and profitability in the first quarter, hitting new records in both categories.

That growth should continue now that Brandmuscle is operating as one seamless company, Alexander said.

“No one talks about what we were. Everyone talks about who we are,” he said.

The final stitches that unite the three former companies — BrandMuscle Inc. in Cleveland, Centiv Services of Chicago and TradeOne Marketing of Austin, Texas — now are in place.

The new version of the company's BrandBuilder software weaves together technologies from all three businesses.

The old BrandMuscle originally designed the software to help franchisees and branch managers localize their advertisements using art and design templates approved by corporate. But now BrandBuilder also lets local branches order small batches of printed marketing materials and get them quickly, which was one of Centiv's specialties. And it gives companies a fast way to reimburse or reward those branches for their sales and marketing efforts, using a TradeOne technology.

Roughly one-third of the new customers that Brandmuscle signed last year wanted all three products, according to Clarke Smith, the company's chief strategy officer.

“Having that combined offering in one place gave us a very compelling story to tell,” Smith said.

Habit-forming

The three companies all were purchased by the Riverside Co., a Cleveland-based private equity firm, since September 2011. The merger went into high gear in January 2013, when the three companies officially became Brandmuscle (without the capital “M.”)

Trying to weave those businesses together was a challenging, time-consuming task, said Alexander, founder of the old BrandMuscle. Today, however, the offices feel like they're part of the same company, he said.

For one, members of the management team are spread throughout Brandmuscle's offices, and employees regularly work with colleagues in other states. And the different offices are getting into the same habits. For instance, all five offices have adopted a tradition from the old BrandMuscle: Each Monday, they each hold a breakfast meeting where they recognize employees and celebrate victories.

Alexander knew the integration was going well when he noticed that individual offices willingly let go of accounts when another office had a stronger relationship with a given client.

Now that the integration is over, Brandmuscle can focus on growing.

“The efforts of last year will bear fruit this year,” Alexander said.

Alan Peyrat put it more bluntly. A partner at Riverside, Peyrat said Brandmuscle “could potentially see four record quarters in a row.”

Working on the core

Other companies can do some of what Brandmuscle does, but Peyrat said he knows of no other company that provides such a broad lineup of software and services.

And there's plenty of business to go around, he added.

“There are still a huge number of potential customers who really should be using our services who aren't using anyone's services,” he said.

Alexander's home is in Northeast Ohio, though he has an apartment near the company's Chicago office, which technically is Brandmuscle's headquarters.

However, the company's office at 1100 Superior Ave. in downtown Cleveland — which houses about 160 of the company's 600 employees — is home to the core of Brandmuscle's product development team.

That's a big deal for Cleveland: Since the merger, Brandmuscle “has become more and more software centric and technology centric,” Peyrat said.

The local office also houses most of the company's sales and marketing employees as well as a few marketing services functions that the old BrandMuscle started a few years ago.

But no department will be permanently tied to one office, Smith said.

The Direct approach

One of those marketing services is growing fast: A year ago, Brandmuscle employed two people tasked with helping franchisees and branch managers that wanted to market their services through social media. Today, that content team has 10 employees, eight of whom are in Cleveland.

The team posts content on behalf of franchisees and branch managers. For instance, a team member posting content on a DirecTV dealer's Facebook page might write about the Academy Awards, “American Idol” and other programs delivered via DirecTV, a Brandmuscle client.

Alexander expects that team to grow.

“It could explode on us,” he said.

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